Stormbreak (Seafire #3) - Natalie C. Parker Page 0,36
we get free of the canals?” Caledonia asked, and when Tin nodded, she added, “Good, tell Harwell to plot the course out of here and get us moving.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Pine!” Caledonia spotted him along the port rail, reloading and replacing the guns snapped beneath. He turned at the sound of her voice. “Keep our gunners ready. There may be more surprises waiting for us before we’re free.”
Pine gave a smart nod and returned to his task as the ship nosed through the narrow canals. The night air was cool and brisk, the canals close and dark and quiet, wrapping them into a false sense of security. Caledonia walked the deck, murmuring words of encouragement to her crew as she passed. These were dangerous moments: when the raging storm of battle broke and bodies yearned for rest. Only when the far western walls of the canals appeared before them did Caledonia call for an all stop, giving the repair teams one hour to accomplish their work.
Early ribbons of sunlight pushed across the domed sky, sweeping darkness along until the canals were filled with a hazy, ethereal kind of light. It wasn’t much, but it was enough, and the repair teams rappelled down the hull of the ship with metaltech plates and welding masks.
Now you, Hime signed, her fingers pointing firmly at Caledonia in a way that brooked no argument from her captain. You’ve been limping since you came aboard and you’ve bled all over the ship. If you don’t care about your wounds, care about the mess.
With light fingers, Hime investigated the gash on Caledonia’s temple, then cleaned it and applied a small patch of skintech. It warmed immediately, its nanotech knitting her skin back together with brutal precision. Caledonia winced, but did not complain.
“Didn’t think we had any of that stuff left,” she said, distracting herself from the strange sensation.
Only small stuff, Hime answered. Amina—
She stopped abruptly and Caledonia felt a shock of panic, pain, sorrow shoot through her lungs at the reminder of their missing friend.
“Not up to the task of the silencers,” she finished, steering them out of those sticky waters.
Are you dizzy? Hime asked, blinking rapidly. How many fingers do you see?
“Three,” Caledonia answered dutifully. “And I’m not dizzy, just nauseated.”
The sun rose a little more, the light shifting from blue to silver. Hime studied Caledonia without expression, yet her eyes revealed a bone-deep exhaustion. They were all pushing through, trying to hold their hearts and hopes together in spite of what had happened. None of them wanted to admit that the people who hadn’t made it aboard this ship might have been abandoned back in Cloudbreak.
After a long minute, Hime nodded. Drink some water. Get off that ankle as soon as possible. Let me know if anything changes.
Caledonia wanted to tell her that Amina was a survivor. Just because she hadn’t made it to the Luminous Wake didn’t mean she hadn’t escaped some other way. But the truth was there was every chance she hadn’t. Every chance that she’d been shot trying to protect them all.
And Caledonia didn’t have it in her to make empty promises.
“I will,” she said instead, smothering her distress beneath the weight of all she still had to accomplish.
As the air filled with the clanking of hammers and the throaty hiss of welding guns, Caledonia and Pisces retreated to the chamber beneath the bridge.
Pisces leaned her back to the door and released a heavy sigh as Caledonia slumped into a chair. For the first time in hours, the pain in her ankle surged and now throbbed in rhythm with her pulse.
“How did we miss this, Pi?” Caledonia asked.
“I’ve been wondering the same thing. I think there are only two possibilities.”
Caledonia had been thinking the same thing, though she was loath to admit one was just as likely as the other. “Either the bomb parts were not as conspicuous as Amina says . . .”
“Or someone made sure they got through inspection.” Pisces folded her arms across her stomach as though the thought made her ill.
“Who was in charge of crew intake?” Caledonia knew she should have the answer, but her mind was exhausted.
“Ennick.” There was a note of reluctant suspicion in Pisces’s tone.
“Ennick,” Caledonia repeated, picturing the old man with his salted hair and weathered orange scars. The man had been a Ballistic, but he’d never tried to hide that fact, and he’d fought at their side through the Battle of Cloudbreak; he’d had so many previous opportunities to betray them before now.